Friday Night Out....

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to do a new show - and it made me think about another type of show.

With three shows already, I wanted to do something a little different to what I was already doing, but something that fitted the mould of the types of show I like to do.

The show was going to be going out at 9pm on a Friday, an ideal party time and I'd had this idea for a show buzzing about in my head for a while. And so James Murphy's Friday Night Out was born.

It's not aimed at the afficionado - it's aimed at people who just want some great feel good music that helps them get into a party mood.

Unlike my Pure Grooves show, it's not the type of show that's going to delve deep to play songs that only dedicated followers will like, it's more along the lines of a show that's got songs most people will know and love, and it won't be aimed at just the soul lover, it has songs from a variety of genres. They only thing is that it has to be a song that's going to leave you wanting to have a boogie.

I wanted this show to be for the widest range of people who just want to have a good time. And from the results of the first three week's listen again and download links, it's struck a chord, as the numbers are in front of my three other shows.

But then again, what's not to like? 2 hours of songs that will get you in the mood to have a good time. Songs you can sing out loud to and have a shuffle around the room to.

I have the feeling that this show could become my most popular one over the long run.

Although I'm only playing songs from the 70s and 80s in the show, there's so much to choose from.

It also made me think about today's music. I know some people will say it's because I'm getting old that I think today's music is not great, but that isn't the truth.

I just don't think that the amount of quality music is about anymore. When I look back to the disco era for example, I can remember that each week there was a whole heap of great records coming out. I know this because even back then I was spending over £30 a week on records.

The proof is that today, over 30 years on, people are still requesting those great songs. I did a wedding last weekend and there was a young lad, 21 years old who came up to me and said he loved the music I was playing. He basically said he's not heard anything new that compared with the songs from the disco era.

And he's right. I've been buying all the chart entries each week for years, and I've noticed that after six months, I can look at the recent songs, and can't remember over half of them, and after a year, can only remember around 10%.

I think it's because music today has become so disposable. Once upon a time we had to go to a shop and spend good money on records, so we were more discerning in our tastes.

Nowadays,  it's easy to nip on limewire or one of hundreds of other sites and download anything and everything for free, and so people do . And because of that, people don't value it so much. I constantly get people come to me at discos and tell me they've got 100,000 tracks + on a hard drive that they've downloaded - most likely they don't even know 80% of what they've downloaded.

I can't imagine too many of today's songs will stand the test of time and still be getting people on a dancefloor in 20 years. It's such a shame. But I think it's definitely the case that music doesn't have the influence it used to have.

And so I'm glad to have the opportunity to play great songs week in, week out, from what were two of the best decades of music...